Love is a Choice

Happy Valentine’s Day

 

 

Somewhere in time, today, it’s Valentine’s Day.  This is a holiday that some say was invented by the Greeting Card Company, but it does trace back to a Priest. 

There really was a man that the Catholic Church recognizes as Saint Valentine.  He was a Roman priest, who defied the orders of the emperor Claudius and performed marriages for the young soldiers who were in love, but forbidden by Claudius to get married.  

Listening to the radio the other day, they were talking about Valentine’s Day.  The focus was on what do you give, or what do you want to get.  No word of a man that sacrificed his life to perform wedding ceremonies or what love truly is about.

If this is a day to celebrate love, why don’t we celebrate what love is?

Love is a choice.

Love isn’t always candy, flowers and stuffed animals – maybe it never is.  I like flowers, but I have been given flowers by people who don’t really love me.  Love isn’t a feeling.  It may start out that way, but feelings change, love doesn’t. Love chooses to stay together, even when things are tough.  Love gives when the other can’t. 

If you don’t believe love is a choice – ask a parent whose child has gone astray.  They don’t have warm fuzzy feelings, but they have love.  They pray, they worry, they cry and they care – all because of love.

Christ is our perfect example of love.  We did nothing to earn it and we do nothing to deserve it, but His love is still there.  God chooses to love us.

 

Romans 5:8King James Version (KJV)

⁸ But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.